Counting Caste

Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-1-009-41411-1
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 296 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 634 g

Reihe: South Asia in the Social Sciences

States periodically agree to social justice reforms in response to organized demands for change. Counting Caste examines how and why governments make such concessions but then fail to implement them. Vithayathil unlocks the secrets of bureaucratic deflection—a process whereby political leaders and bureaucrats stall policy changes—through an in-depth examination of a caste survey in India. Political leaders conceded to collect caste-wise data in Census 2011 for the first time in India's post-independence history. Yet, in the year that followed, bureaucrats blocked a caste count in the census and rerouted it to an inexperienced part of the government. This book uncovers the plan to gather caste-wise data in an alternative project with a history of producing poor-quality data. The case of the failed caste count highlights how state institutions evade the documentation of caste power, the continued institutionalization of castelessness—which frames caste as a problem of the oppressed and hides caste privilege and power—and ongoing efforts at resisting caste hierarchy and Hindutva domination.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Vithayathil, Trina

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Abbreviations; List of Figures; Preface and acknowledgements; 1. Introduction: The Political Maneuvers of Caste Denial; 2. The Institutional Life of Caste; 3. The Politics of the Count; 4. Survey Making in an Era of Castelessness; 5. The Household Interview; 6. Disappeared Data: The Life and Death of Caste Data; 7. Conclusion: Commensuration in Brahmanical Institutions; Appendices; References; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Vithayathil, Trina
Trina Vithayathil is a sociologist and associate professor of global studies and affiliated faculty in Asian studies and women's and gender studies at Providence College.